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Your Backyard Birds: Understanding the behaviours, habits and needs of our brilliant birds
The remarkable relationships between our often cheeky birds and humans in Australian backyards all over the country are revealed with humour and charm. An ideal gift for any bird lover.
A beautiful, inspiring and heartwarming book about our human relationships with the birds who share our backyards.
'Do you ever wonder what birds are talking about as they fly by you? The sounds and songs of birds constantly surround us as we go about our lives. But what are they talking about? Or are they even talking or just mindlessly squawking and chirping? Why are so many urban birds so loud? Is there a message in what the birds are telling each other?'
Observing and interacting with all the different birds who visit Australian backyards leads naturally to questions about their behaviours, habits and needs. Why are they visiting? What do they want from us?
For a bird, life in Australia means having others who you can trust and work with to locate food and water, which can disappear as suddenly as it appears. As the humans who plant the gardens they live in and visit, what can we learn from Australia's often-cheeky birds?
With a foreword by science journalist and broadcaster Robyn Williams AM, and chapters dedicated to discovering extraordinary information about Australia's innovative birds, Your Backyard Birds is a delightful and compelling read. With real stories from bird-loving citizen scientists, this fascinating book features new insights about the lives of our avian friends.
Your Backyard Birds , written by a wildlife ecologist who is passionate about the vital role of citizen scientists, provides a fresh and lively perspective on human interaction with birds.
A beautiful, inspiring and heartwarming book about our human relationships with the birds who share our backyards.
'Do you ever wonder what birds are talking about as they fly by you? The sounds and songs of birds constantly surround us as we go about our lives. But what are they talking about? Or are they even talking or just mindlessly squawking and chirping? Why are so many urban birds so loud? Is there a message in what the birds are telling each other?'
Observing and interacting with all the different birds who visit Australian backyards leads naturally to questions about their behaviours, habits and needs. Why are they visiting? What do they want from us?
For a bird, life in Australia means having others who you can trust and work with to locate food and water, which can disappear as suddenly as it appears. As the humans who plant the gardens they live in and visit, what can we learn from Australia's often-cheeky birds?
With a foreword by science journalist and broadcaster Robyn Williams AM, and chapters dedicated to discovering extraordinary information about Australia's innovative birds, Your Backyard Birds is a delightful and compelling read. With real stories from bird-loving citizen scientists, this fascinating book features new insights about the lives of our avian friends.
Your Backyard Birds , written by a wildlife ecologist who is passionate about the vital role of citizen scientists, provides a fresh and lively perspective on human interaction with birds.
265 pages, Kindle Edition
Published March 4, 2019
9 people are currently reading
49 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
April 4, 2019
What a brilliant little book. Chatty and scientifically sound. Informative but never dull. And all about Australian birds too! A rare find and a real treasure. Highly recommended.
June 9, 2024
This book is bad for birds. Cats are predators of birds. Why would the author encourage them to play together? While other bird experts are trying to teach people to keep cats away from birds, she’s doing the opposite. And also, lorikeets are nectivores. Bird seeds are not good for them. I've read articles about how feeding the birds harm their health, like kookaburras and meat. The author wants to encourage making wild animals into pets, playing with us and our pets, eating out of our hands. even keeping native animals, which is illegal in Australia.
It is not helped by the book's layout. I was constantly interrupted by short and mostly useless observations submitted by non-experts, which do not seem to serve much purpose except to ruin the flow of the book. On several occasions, it goes from these very short stories into something unrelated, as if the author felt the need to pack as many submissions as possible even if they do not fit in smoothly. It made me wonder if this is a gimmick to sell more books and get more positive reviews. (I wonder how many positive reviews are from these.)
It is not helped by the book's layout. I was constantly interrupted by short and mostly useless observations submitted by non-experts, which do not seem to serve much purpose except to ruin the flow of the book. On several occasions, it goes from these very short stories into something unrelated, as if the author felt the need to pack as many submissions as possible even if they do not fit in smoothly. It made me wonder if this is a gimmick to sell more books and get more positive reviews. (I wonder how many positive reviews are from these.)
April 9, 2020
Thoughtful, insightful and provocative. This book layers anecdotal stories with well explained science to light up topics that have traditionally been surrounded with superstition and inherited opinion and shines a new light on what we thought we knew about our birds.
January 16, 2020
Such an interesting, informative and engaging book. Australian birds are wonderful: gregarious, full of personality and so noisy. This book had a great mix of personal stories and solid information.
April 9, 2020
learnt lots and loved it! fast and easy read - would recommend
June 12, 2020
Instructive, enjoyable and informative.
March 27, 2020
Really wanted to enjoy this book, but unfortunately I found it lacking in direction or purpose, and uninteresting. I wasn’t able to persevere to finish it.
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews